Melani, I think a lot of people are too defensive of parents, when it is the children who are suffering, usually at the hands of a parent/step parent while another caretaker stands by and does nothing to stop it. We all want to believe that the behavior of adults who commit these sorts of crimes can't or shouldn't be attributable to poor parenting, because we fear people scrutinizing our own parenting skills, or those of our parents, friends, etc.

But the fact still remains that it is family members who most often are guilty of neglecting and/or abusing children. And the fact still remains that damaging children like that often does more than just leave a scar, or a wound that doesn't heal properly.

BTW, I wouldn't put crimes against property (ie theft, etc) in the same class or category as crimes committed against people.

And just because someone does a decent job of raising most their children, doesn't mean they did a decent job of raising all of their children. Anyone who comes from a large family knows that just isn't the way the breaks and luck fall in families. Some times are more stressful than others, some kids get much more attention than others, some kids get more privleges than others, etc. It can also happen that parents get distracted from child rearing when dealing with their own hard times, and don't see what is happening under their noses. That happens really often too.

I would expect to find some serious instances of child abuse in an adult sex offender, regardless of whether it was committed by a family member. The Catholic church's denial of the abuse problems for decades is symptomatic of something which runs much deeper than clergy sexual abuse of children. And that something is sexual abuse of children by family members or friends of family members--people the child knows and possibly trusts and likes.

Yet, the subject of familial sexual abuse of children is still taboo in our society.